11 Rules For Better Trading

Money Management

Market Timing

Things To Know

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

I have been behind on my reading, and last night I finally had a chance to catch up and read the recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal entitled, "The Biggest Losers".

I had read about the U.S. Treasury's Christmas eve shenanigans from other media outlets, but for whatever reason, the WSJ opinion piece evoked a very visceral response. Every paragraph made me nauseated and inflamed my sense of fairness. Just what are these people thinking?

Every American should be outraged, but for some reason, no one is. If you pay taxes, you should be outraged. If you don't pay taxes, you should be outraged. If you have lost your job, you should be outraged. If you are behind on your house payments, you should be outraged. If you are the beneficiary of such programs, you should be outraged.

I am by no means suggesting that we should throw people out of their homes and onto the streets, but the way this program (i.e., subsidy) has evolved is really the unfortunate part of this story. This is a disingenuous effort by our leaders (sic) to cram down the throats of every American a program that has tremendous implications for our financial future. It was put forth on Christmas Eve (1st bad sign) only days prior to the deadline that would have resulted in Congress having some sort of control over the program. Depending upon your view of Congress (which is likely poor), this may be good or bad, but it is bad sign #2 in that it prevented public discourse and oversight on such an important policy initiative.

As stated above, how it has all evolved is very sickening and troubling.

4 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I guess biggest losers are "smart" money"? it seems "dumb" money are keep winning... How's Rydex fund as of close today? Last Friday was 2.5:1 but market still going up although not much but not dropping either...

of course I'm upset about the whole ordeal. But, what can a person do? There is nothing. The corruption, fraud and manipulation from our government/fed is blatant such that most seem to think its acceptable.

They got us all over a barrel. As far as I can see, there is no solution and the ponzi continues into eternity. And when it does end, they'll know in advance and we'll be left with nothing.

I think the rats are jumping ship. Dorgan and Dodd to name a few. These guys know the SHTF soon enough and they want to be gone.

Still to this day, I try and convince people of the fraud and corruption, and they still ignore me or tell me I'm paranoid.

F it. I hope they suffer more than others that have tried to bring this truth forth.

I look around my local environment as well and realized most people I am in contact with all day are clueless; outraged maybe, but too involved with their own day to day to know or care what is going on

As far as the mortgage situation is concerned, I think the government is very worried that people will (or perhaps already have) started walking away from their mortgages in large numbers. A gernerous modification policy may encourage some to stay, but will encourage others to default. In other words, it's a conundrum.

Barney Frank has said Fan and Fred are now "public utilities." I think the government wants to keep them afloat as a tool to help keep the whole system from imploding.